The President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced on Wednesday that “the new Brazilian variant” of the coronavirus was detected in three states of the country, so security measures will be “redoubled”.
“We have detected in Venezuela the presence of the Brazilian variant of covid-19, it is a more contagious variant, which transmits more viral load, which means that it is more serious,” said the president, who noted that the first case appeared 15 days ago in a worker at the Maiquetía International Airport.
The president affirmed that there are currently ten active cases, of which two are in Caracas, two in Miranda state and six in Bolívar state: “I do not want to create scaremongering, but we must be well informed and redouble prevention measures in public and private spaces,” said the head of State.
Maduro explained that those people who tested positive for this are already hospitalized and the authorities are evaluating their close circles. “Due to the aggressiveness of this variant we are obliged to take special measures,” he insisted.
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The president asked the Ministry for Health and the Scientific Commission on Covid-19, “an opinion on the treatment protocols to attack this new variant,” and proposed moving the vaccination process to the places where the strain is detected.
Likewise, Maduro ordered a doubling of house-to-house visits and mass screening for the disease. “Let us increase protection, together with the medical brigades, we are going to cut these chains of transmission of the new strain,” said the president, while asking to increase the availability of treatments in the country.
Finally, Maduro reported that the situation had already been notified to the World Health Organization (WHO). So far, Venezuela reports 1,353 deaths from covid-19 and 139,934 infections.
